The broad aims of the Data Management and Informatics Core (DMIC) are to 1) provide data management and medical informatics services to all studies supported by the Yale Pepper Center and 2) exploit and extend information technologies in order to devise innovative, efficient and generalizeable data systems for use by Pepper Centers and other workgroups within and outside Yale. The DMIC will act to remove barriers to research into multifactorial geriatric health conditions. Key services that DMIC will provide include electronic and paper questionnaire design;participant tracking;study progress monitoring;data entry;data quality control;preparation and documentation of datasets for analysis;statistical programming;database application programming;and staff and junior faculty training in data management and informatics methodologies. The DMIC will directly support seven Pepper studies, and will indirectly support fourteen non-Pepper research studies of multifactorial geriatric health conditions. Indirect support will consist of infrastructure, training, supervision and administration. In order to make effective and efficient use of emerging technologies and practices, the DMIC will continue its collaboration with the Yale Center for Medical Informatics (YCMI). Other collaborating centers include the Veterans Administration Cooperative Studies Program Coordinating Center (CSPCC), the UCLA Pepper Center Research Operations Core (ROC), and the Yale Center for Genomics and Proteomics. The DMIC provides the administration and infrastructure management for the larger Yale Program on Aging (POA) data management workgroup. POA resources that are managed by DMIC include ten data managers and programmers having more than 120 years cumulative experience in research studies;file servers, web hosts and database servers;an extensive data management and statistical software library;a common database system for subject tracking, interviewer performance monitoring, and conduct-of-study analysis; and a library of geriatric data collection instruments. The DMIC will maximize efficiency by relying heavily on systems and procedures developed during prior . Pepper funding cycles. These systems are thoroughly tested and familiar to all POA data managers. A recent technology upgrade to the POA computing environment ensures that the existing infrastructure will be sufficient for the proposed study period.